


A Satyr Against Reason

by wildestranger



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-05
Updated: 2010-04-05
Packaged: 2017-10-08 17:55:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/78041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildestranger/pseuds/wildestranger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus finds himself watching Sirius. Then there is casual sex, naughty poetry and a green shirt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Satyr Against Reason

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pre_raphaelite1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pre_raphaelite1/gifts).



> Thank you to [](http://fleshdress.livejournal.com/profile)[**fleshdress**](http://fleshdress.livejournal.com/) for the beta!

  
_Were I (who to my cost already am  
One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man)  
A spirit free to choose, for my own share,  
What case of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,  
I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear,  
Or anything but that vain animal  
Who is so proud of being rational._

Remus notices that he has started watching Sirius again. Nothing obvious really; they have shared a flat for two years and a certain amount of looking is necessary to avoid collision. But there is a subtle difference to this, looking at Sirius to see his friend and housemate, and looking at Sirius to see long fingers curling along cigarettes, a pale stretch of his back in the morning, an old bruise peaking out of the collar of his shirt.

This Sirius isn't beautiful like the other one. In sixth year there had been a lovely boy, charming and mischievous, and far too likely to step into Remus' personal space for him ever to breathe comfortably around Sirius. Remus had looked at that boy, looked with flushed cheeks and fluttering eyelashes, and castigated himself for looking. He had said nothing (you are only allowed to look as long as you don't want more) and then things had happened and afterwards looking at Sirius made him feel sick and unsteady, and so he had stopped.

But there is something in this Sirius that demands an unwilling interest from Remus. This Sirius is thin and worn out by war, his voice rough from too many cigarettes and his hands calloused and hard. There are signs of damage in the body Sirius displays in the mornings, walking to the shower with a towel on his hips, the youthful skin contrasted with the wear and tear of a soldier. His laughter has acquired a new bark, but he is also gentle when he teases Remus, pulls him out of his books and his aching joints. Sirius makes him tea in the evening when he comes back from work, exhausted and full of hate for the world. Remus smiles in gratitude and resents the world that makes him depend on such small kindnesses.

It isn't that Sirius makes it more difficult for him to sustain his coldness; after all, Remus has years of practice in guarding the boundaries of his person. But his body seems to want other things. It looks at other bodies and refuses the place Remus has consigned for it. It doesn't want to sit in the library and be still. It doesn't want to eat cheap bread and week-old vegetables. It doesn't want to remain safe and invulnerable.

His body is ruthless in its desires, but so is Remus, and his control has not been snapped yet. Yet there is a certain irony in having his restrain turn into indiscriminate want. Well, not indiscriminate; that the choice should fall on Sirius is both precise and devastating. But not beyond his abilities to handle.

The things his fingers are itching for are not intimacy, or passion, or love. Nothing so trite or so ridiculous. Not the touch of a friendly body, or the touch of a friend. Not Sirius, for Sirius is not for him. Sirius is for fit bodies, for bodies that fit, smooth bodies, knowing bodies. Hands that are steady, hands that aren't deformed with twisted bones and old skin. Not broken hands.

Remus looks at his body and considers what it means, what it doesn't mean. The pervasive nausea that follows him for days after the full moon. The curious numbness that tells him his bones are about to shatter. The revulsion on the face of others when they know what he is, the revulsion that doesn't show on his own face but that he knows is there. The dread that brings bile to his throat when he thinks about other bodies, the paralysing thought of his own body. Reason and ruthless honesty tell him what he has and what he must lose, what he must not hope for if he is to use his body. Remus learns.

Sirius is not someone he should want. But there are other bodies, and Remus knows how to use his.

: :

He feels the music in his bones, the rhythm that has no rhythm, the sound that makes him swerve on his feet. Another night he would let it carry him away, follow the pulse in his hips. Let the wine make everything sharper.

This time it's a woman. She is pale and blonde, paler than him and almost as beautiful as Sirius. She reminds Remus of him, the arrogance in the tilt of the head, the challenge to the people swarming around her to come closer, and be sent away in contempt. He walks up to her, whispers something in her ear and she looks at him. The twist of her lips signals an agreement with a worthy adversary, and the tilt of his head implies that he wouldn't have expected anything less. She follows him to a private room.

There are marks on her skin that tell him more about her than he would want to know, but he says nothing, pushes her against the wall and fucks her. She is moaning, almost screaming, and her hands are gripping his shoulders as his fingers stroke her, move inside her. His teeth are biting into her neck when she comes, but he doesn't feel her body, feels nothing except the mechanical movement of his hips, a little explosion behind his eyelids, and then nothing.

: :

The flat is silent when he gets back. He still feels the alcohol coursing in his body, pushing his heart beat faster, poisoning his stomach. He considers throwing up, but decides against it. His body can handle this.

His face in the mirror is blurred, his mouth black from the wine and from the woman's lips. Her nails have left marks on his shoulders, signs of her greed and his, almost bleeding. He doesn't feel them. He spells the scratches away, drinks a pint of water and goes to bed.

: :

Sirius is reading one of Remus' books when he comes home from work. Remus doesn't like people touching his books, and Sirius knows this. But lately he has become less cautious about risking Remus' anger, less careful with the balance between them. Remus isn't sure whether this pleases or worries him.

Sirius doesn't look at up when Remus enters the room, but his eyelashes are quivering as he waits on the sofa.

"What are you reading?"

A glint in Sirius' eyes, but his voice is steady.

"The poetry of Lord Rochester."

Remus tilts his head, and considers. Sirius is lying on his back, his arms lifted above his head and holding the paperback. His feet are bare, and the old t-shirt he wears is wrinkled, exposing the sharp corners of Sirius' hipbones. His toes are curled.

"Enjoying yourself?"

The shiver of amusement in his voice is intentional, and Remus observes the corresponding twitch of muscles on Sirius' belly.

"Oh yes. It's very dirty, this. All cocks and cunts and whores. I never realised there were so many rhymes for naughty words. Listen to this:

_Love a woman? You're an ass!  
'Tis a most insipid passion  
To choose out for your happiness  
The silliest part of god's creation._

Let the porter and the groom,  
Things designed for dirty slaves.  
Drudge in fair Aurelia's womb  
To get supplies for age and graves.

Farewell, woman! I intend  
Henceforth every night to sit  
With my lewd, well-natured friend,  
Drinking to engender wit.

To give me health, wealth, mirth, and wine,  
And, if busy love entrenches,  
There's a sweet, soft page of mine  
Does the trick worth forty wenches."

There's amusement tugging in the corners of Remus' mouth. Sirius' voice acts out impossible scenarios in his head, with wenches and wine and soft sweet bodies of boys. There's a wicked red tongue poking out of Sirius' mouth as he waits for Remus' answer, and Remus allows himself to grin.

"Sounds fascinating. Is that what has preoccupied you this evening? Wine and wit and pageboys? Not your usual thing, is it, Sirius. Well, not the wit and the pageboys, anyway."

Sirius makes a show of looking affronted, but quickly melts into good humour when Remus laughs at him.

"Perhaps I have lately developed an interest in boys and their tricks. And I'll have you know I have always appreciated wit. My own, at least."

The wide grin on Sirius' face is almost as disturbing as his words, but Remus concentrates on trailing his fingers along the edge of the sofa and decides to consider the matter of Sirius liking boys at another time. When he is safe in his room and doesn't have to respond, doesn't have to control the look on his face. Sirius is watching him, tension evident in the long lines of his body. Remus steps back and gestures towards the book.

"You like Rochester, then?"

Sirius licks his lips and uncurls his toes.

"Terribly perverted, this bloke. And very cynical, attacking everybody and calling everybody a whore. Is he doing it just to shock, do you think?"

Remus shrugs. The perfect arch of Sirius' foot is taunting him. Long, elegant toes making him wonder about things to make them shiver. But his hands remain still in his pockets and his posture reveals only scholarly curiosity.

"Perhaps. He died young, of syphilis, after supposedly spending his life in debauchery."

Sirius looks up, carefully innocent.

"Now why would you do that?"

The _you_ could be generic, could have been chosen to indicate a rhetorical question, but the stillness of Sirius' pose suggests that it isn't. There's a moment of mental staggering as Remus thinks about what this means. The book was not chosen at random and there's a point Sirius is trying to make here, a point Remus is carefully trying to avoid. Remus lowers his eyes against what he knows to be an avid search for signs. It isn't even that Sirius doesn't recognise their boundaries. This isn't a careless invasion of privacy, something to be solved through a stern speech and a few pints in apology. An attack like this is direct and threatening, and the intention behind it terrifies him.

Yet there is only slight distaste in his voice when he speaks, and his mouth curls into a sneer of courteous disinterest without any effort.

"Read the biography, it's on the top shelf."

Sirius opens his mouth, to express his dissatisfaction with Remus' avoidance, or his surprise at being allowed to read one of Remus' books, but Remus walks into his room and shuts the door before he can hear what Sirius is saying. There's a leftover bottle of wine on the bookshelf, which will do nicely in lieu of dinner. Wine that breaks his mind into pieces he can handle, and leaves his hands cold and his body untouched.

: :

The next time it's a boy. He is standing in a corner, narrow hips swinging to the music, cheeks flushed from the heat and the noise and the green liquid in his glass. Remus takes his time watching him, notes the bitten nails, the sheen of sweat on his neck, the open collar and the thin black shirt.

He also takes his time fucking the boy. He licks the crease between his thigh and stomach and the boy mewls. He pulls the boy's arms behind his back, keeps him still as he pushes inside, watches as the boy twitches and groans and bites through his lip. He drags his teeth along the boy's collarbone as he comes, not biting, not hurting, keeping the tension inside.

When the boy slumps on the ground, his legs collapsing beneath him, Remus pulls his trousers up and walks out. His hands are sticky but he doesn't bother washing them until he gets home.

: :

Remus watches as Lily steps up next to James in the bar. They are standing close, not quite touching. James leans in, whispers something in her ear, almost kissing her hair. They are smiling, standing tantalisingly close, but not touching. They don't have to.

That kind of intimacy is not something Remus should want. Or rather, he should want it but not have it. He should spend his life in envy, pining for something not meant for things like him. Remus chooses not to do that.

When he touches the boy in the club, or the woman in the bar, or the man in the pub in Knockturn alley, there is a set of movements to follow, a ritual of fingers and mouths. They do what they need to do, no more. When Remus tugs a nipple between his teeth, it isn't an expression of desire, of love, it's simply what you do. They don't see his body and he doesn't have to look at theirs.

Remus walks up to James and Lily, and makes sure to bump into James when he arrives so that they'll notice his presence.

"Hi Moony."

Remus feels his intrusion, and tries to satisfy himself with a slight grimace. But Lily smiles at him like she's glad to see him, and the stiffness on his face relents.

"You've found a girlfriend, then?"

James's tone is friendly, and so Remus merely lifts his eyebrows.

"That's a hickey, isn't it?"

"You don't need a girlfriend to get a hickey, Prongs. Maybe Moony's spending every night in the company of floozies and sodomites, frequenting dodgy clubs and shagging strangers."

Sirius' voice is full of glee and threat. Remus stands still as the familiar, _friendly_ body presses against his back. James frowns and Lily gives an uncertain smile, but Sirius isn't looking at them. His arm is bare and heavy on Remus' shoulders, and his face is close, too close, and Remus doesn't dare to turn his head towards it.

"Aw, Padfoot, you've found me out. Been following me, have you? Sneaking in to all the seedy bars and dark alleyways where I find my partners?"

Remus offers a mocking grin but Sirius keeps looking at him as Lily and James begin to laugh.

"Yes."

A brush of lips against his ear, and then Remus shrugs Sirius' arm off him and excuses himself to go to the gents.

Cold water on his face, not that he needs it. But it's something to do as he waits for Sirius to follow him.

The door bangs in predictable fashion against the wall. Remus stares at his reflection in the mirror. There's a cut in his cheekbone that he hadn't noticed.

"Why are you doing this?"

Remus knows what kind of behaviour irritates Sirius the most, same as Sirius knows about him. There's a shard of discontent in the back of his head that tells him this shouldn't be what friendship is about, but he ignores it. He keeps looking at the mirror.

"This? Do explain."

The cuffs of his shirt are frayed, but Remus has no time to make a show of examining them more closely before Sirius grabs hold of his shirt and pushes him against the wall. Remus allows it, for the moment.

"Why are you going out every night, getting pissed and fucking strangers in dark corners? What are you doing in Knockturn Alley? In those bars?"

Remus turns his head and looks at Sirius through lowered eyelids. There are dark circles around his eyes, same as his own, and his breathing is harsh. Sirius' hands are rough on his neck, nails biting into the vulnerable skin on his collarbone. He licks his lips and feels Sirius' fingers twitch.

"Why is that any of your business?"

And then the grim mouth turns into a smile, a temptation so threatening that Remus wants to close his eyes. This is why he stays away.

"Because I am your friend, Remus, and what you are doing is both uncharacteristic and dangerous. Do you know what kind of people go to those places? Not only Muggles, Remus. Not only whores and druggies and criminals. Not only my brother and his friends, but those who look for Dark Creatures and members of the Order or anyone they can use and destroy. You should know better than that."

Sirius laughs a mocking sound of bitterness and it tastes sweet in Remus' mouth.

"You _do_ know better than that. That's why you're Moony. So why are you doing this?"

Remus tilts his head as he looks at Sirius. There is more than curiosity there, more than presumption and ownership. Sirius is looking for something, but Remus finds that he doesn't want to show it, whatever it is. Such things concern only him, and can only be opened in the darkness of his solitary room, in the secrecy of his own flesh. Yet it isn't this thought that makes him push Sirius back and pin him against the wall instead. Moony wouldn't do that. Moony knows his place and what he should want and never have, and Remus finds that the restraints on his role are suddenly irritating and unbearable.

His heart is beating fast and his fingers are trembling, but he holds tight on to Sirius neck. His voice is low and more needy than he realises when he leans in and whispers against Sirius' ear.

"Perhaps I just want to. Perhaps strangers' bodies are what I need when I come home at night. We can't all be Lily and James. We can't all be Sirius."

The sibilants of the last word are a caress, almost inevitable and almost allowed, of warm breath against the shivering skin beneath him. Sirius' eyes are low and his mouth is too close to Remus' neck, but when Remus tries to pull away, the hands on his back become tight and entangled. Sirius is speaking and his lips are wet, leaving trails of painfully sensitive skin along Remus' collarbone.

"Now why would you want a stranger's body, Moony? Wouldn't a friend be better, someone who knows you, someone you can trust?"

Sirius' hands are shifting in patterns like snakes along Remus' back, tracing the scars underneath his shirt with knowing fingers, making Remus tense against his poisonous words. Such words should not be trusted, such bodies cannot be. But Sirius' hands are strong, warm against the perennial thinness of Remus' shirts, stroking the flesh with sharp fingertips.

"Wouldn't this be better?"

And Remus can't help but close his eyes when Sirius' mouth touches his, nibbles gently on his lower lip and then kisses him hard. The coldness of his own body is almost forgotten between Sirius' hands and Sirius' lips, teasing him with forbidden warmth. But he can't focus on any part of his body before his attention is tugged elsewhere by the twists and swirls of Sirius' body, moving against him, leaving raw skin and greedy nerves behind. Too much greed, and not the kind he can deal with, not what he can allow. Remus pulls away with a sharp moan that will shame him later, and keeps his hands and a safe distance before him.

"No, it wouldn't be. You should know how foolish, how ridiculously stupid that would be."

And Sirius grins because he has made Remus use excessive and repetitive language, something that rarely comes out of his control, and Remus feels his stomach flip when he realises this.

"I'm sure you can find someone else to be friendly with."

The word Remus spits out has nothing affectionate in it, nothing that recognises brotherly bonds. There is a long silence, relieved only by the crowded noise of the pub coming through the door. But the pointed grace in Sirius' body as he leaves the room and the determined swagger in his walk suggest that he understands what was said.

: :

Remus doesn't hate his body. He used to fear it, the thing that would come out of it, the thing that made other people hate him. It stretches his body into something that isn't him, a thing even more alien than him. But now it's just there, easily forgotten and ignored, disappearing against the words on a page or the dark lights of a nightclub.

What the mirror shows is not what he is, but what he sees is satisfactory. Pale brown hair, too long and touching his shoulders, falling over his eyes. A few freckles on his cheekbones, pale eyes looking straight at him through long lashes. Remus knows that he doesn't look at other people like this, with the intent to see, and as he watches the sly smile that forms on his face in company appears, briefly revealing another Remus, and then goes away. It doesn't take practice; this is what his face is, what it does when it becomes just another spectacle to be paraded in public and used to entice. He rarely looks at it himself, and the thing others see when they look at him doesn't really interest him, anymore than the bodies of others do.

And there are no marks on him from Sirius' hands and mouth, nothing to make him visible in the crowds tonight.

: :

The man is dancing against the music, every twist of his hips a counterpoint to the rhythm. Yet the precision of his movements is somehow so right that it tantalises with its hypnotism, and Remus can't look away, doesn't want to look away when there are such things on the dance floor. He takes another sip and the wine that fills his mouth is hot on his tongue, making the music louder in his ears and the rhythm stronger in his bones.

The man looks at him and Remus allows a slight predatory expression flit across his face. He takes another sip of his drink and watches as the man pretends not to be interested, pretends not to be moving towards Remus. The music becomes harder and the bodies around him lose their rhythm as elegant writhing turns into stumbling movements, fast and frantic and mindless. Remus finished his drink and puts his glass on the table before him. He will need his hands free.

But just as the man prepares to accidentally fall against his table, another body joins his on the sofa and a familiar thigh presses against his. The man jerks back and actually falls against another pair of wriggling bodies behind him, who quickly grab him and take him deeper into the dance floor. Sirius laughs, and Remus feels his throat contract at the sound.

"Having fun, Moony?"

One of Sirius hands is resting on Remus' thigh, innocently peaceful as if it wasn't sending nervous shocks all around his body. Remus pushes it away but Sirius grabs hold of his hand. Long fingers, unnaturally pale in the darkness of the room, tracking the tiny scars in his hands, stroking the skin between his fingers, nails prickling along the wrinkles in his knuckles. Sirius turns his hand around and trails his thumb along the blue veins of Remus' wrist.

"What do you want, Sirius?"

A flash of white teeth that move perilously close to Remus' ear. A brush of long hair along Remus' cheek.

"I want to know what you do here. Why you come here. Why you want _them_."

It has always been ridiculously easy for Sirius to seduce people, with a look, with a casual touch, without any effort even. Remus has watched a thousand girls have what they call their hearts broken without Sirius noticing. What he has not seen is Sirius seducing with intent, Sirius coming too close with the purpose of getting even closer, Sirius using every bit of his gorgeous flesh to tease and touch. And with every breath that flickers against his ear, Remus feels himself crumble into small and needy pieces.

"Why them, when you could have this."

Sirius slides his face along Remus' cheek, his mouth open with tantalising kisses. He slithers his tongue on Remus' jaw and then his teeth are on Remus' neck, sharp and sweet and heady, and Remus is falling against the sofa, too helpless to do anything except shiver under Sirius' mouth.

When Sirius' starts insistently tugging Remus' shirt, and slips under to graze his nails along the trembling muscles, Remus remembers that he does know how to do this. And that the reason he never lies there and takes it, never stays still enough to allow himself be touched, is that it comes too close to shattering the comfortable numbness of his body. He can feel Sirius in every point of contact, but the rest of him is also there, humming with sensation and flowing with blood and that's too much. He pushes Sirius away and flips him on his back, climbs over the elegantly sprawling limbs and bites the astonished O of his mouth.

"Apparate back. Now."

He doesn't let go as the side-along apparation makes him queasy and fills his head with tight nausea, but Sirius' hands on his shoulders are warm and he holds on.

: :

Remus pushes Sirius on the bed, but there are greedy hands distracting him, grabbing his t-shirt and latching on to newly exposed skin. He pins Sirius down and straddles his hips, but a wicked mouth is flickering on his nipples and Sirius' knuckles are raising goose bumps on his spine and Remus' head spins as he tries to understand this kind of touching. These aren't movements for the obvious purpose, for coaxing a quick arousal from the other's body and moving on to easy satisfaction. This isn't what you're supposed to do, but as Sirius' tongue laps along his navel and Remus' fingers are discovering new pieces of shuddering skin on Sirius, he finds that his flesh comes alive with nerve-wracking force and leaves him defenceless against it.

: :

There's a slight moan against his shoulder as Remus wakes up and tries to move away. Sirius has wrapped himself around Remus with considerable intent, arms and legs and fingers finding their way into surprising places and hot breath teasing the side of Remus' neck. Remus has a vague memory of attempting to extricate himself at some point in the night and being quickly covered in nuzzling Sirius. He resists the warmth of his bed, and gets up, walks with only a little unsteadiness into the bathroom.

There are bite marks all over his body, and sharp memories of teeth and tongue and lips arise as Remus looks at himself. A warm mouth tracing the freckles on his stomach, impertinent fingers stroking the fine hair on his thighs. And Sirius' wide eyes, daring and open as Remus pushed into him, breathless moans whispered into his mouth as he fucked him.

"All right there, Moony?"

Sirius walks with the swagger of the well shagged, but the indolence of his posture is betrayed by the firm fingers that come to rest on Remus' stomach as Sirius presses against him. Remus watches as the dark head leans close, and winks at him through the mirror.

Remus nods, but says nothing. He doesn't like being touched this early in the morning. He doesn't move away, though.

"And aren't you gorgeous this morning. Naked and lovely and well-bitten."

There's a moment of stillness before Remus tries to push away, but neither his frown nor the coldness of his voice manage to move Sirius.

"You know, you don't need to say things like that to me. I'm not a conquest whom you need to flatter, Sirius. Not stupid enough to believe such things."

The last comes out with a snarl and Remus hates the self-pity that pervades these words. But Sirius doesn't let go of him. Instead he lets his knuckles slide into the soft hair on Remus belly and presses his thigh between Remus' legs. His mouth is moving along Remus' neck and his eyes are hard in the mirror.

"No flattery, Remus. Just look at yourself. Your cheeks are flushed and you can barely keep from shaking when I touch you. So beautiful, Remus. Gorgeous when I touch you."

Remus is watching Sirius' hands in the mirror, trying to find the connection between what he sees and the touch his body is responding to. But Sirius' sharp teeth are nipping at his neck and prodding his head forward, making him look at himself. Remus swallows, and watches with a growing sense of dread as Sirius' palm slides along his cock. He is rolling Remus' balls between his fingers, and Remus can't help pushing forward into those hands, can't help letting out a keening noise high in his throat. He wants to close his eyes but that makes it worse, he can feel more and he can't bear it, Sirius' cock sliding along his arse, Sirius' hands stroking the precome over his cock and flicking the tight flesh on his foreskin. Sirius' hand pressing him tight against the other body, back to chest and every nerve-ending alive, then moving to grip his wrist and stroking his thumb along the delicate skin. Remus' head falls back on Sirius' shoulder and he can only grasp for air when he comes, helpless and shuddering, under Sirius' hands.

But when he opens his eyes he is still there and so is Sirius, warm and unyielding behind him, touching him.

: :

Sirius moves into his bed. He sits next to Remus when they go to the pub, a warm thigh pressing into his and making him constantly hard, and even prodding James to ask if they are holding hands under the table since they must sit so close. Sirius lets his fingers brush against Remus', gives him private grins and outrageous winks at the strangest moments. Sirius keeps touching him.

Remus doesn't go out anymore. Not because they have a relationship or any such bollocks, he says. But he is tired and it's dangerous and he doesn't want to, and the house is warmer now that spring is coming close. The itch that crawls under his skin before the full moon wants something else now. And although his body is quite obvious about what that something is, Remus decides it's better not to voice such thoughts. He needs the appearance of reason at least. Sirius says nothing, but there is eloquence in the way his hands are constantly roaming on Remus' skin, and also in Remus' breathless response.

And what frightens Remus most is how easily he becomes greedy for these touches, how quickly he moves to touch Sirius in return and coaxes desperate moans from his friend's body. He knows better than to allow himself to become dependent on the feel of another body against his, particularly this body, but that knowledge doesn't seem to affect this perpetual longing to be near Sirius, to touch Sirius. His reason has no satisfactory answer for him, it only says _more, more_, and for once his body agrees.

Yet, he decides, this constant touching doesn't mean he's given in.

: :

Sirius buys him a green shirt. There's a smidgeon of an argument when Remus frostily points out that he doesn't need Sirius to buy him clothes and that he is fully capable of dressing himself. He is also surprised because Sirius hates green, and has banished all green items from their flat as treacherous and Slytherin. But Sirius pouts and says it's for Remus' birthday, and that the colour brings out hidden things in Remus' eyes and hair and skin. He vanishes Remus' clothes and pulls the shirt on him, carefully fingering the buttons until they are mostly in the correct slots. He nuzzles Remus' neck and when he steps back the usually pervasive coldness doesn't rush in to take up his space. Remus looks at himself in the mirror, the startling vividness transforming his pale skin into something new, something he can bear to look at.

His reason tells him it's because the shirt is new and expensive, the material fine, and the rush of blood in his body is caused by Sirius' clever fingers already peeling the garment off him. Pale green silk and a hungry mouth on his neck are things he can accept. But the tremble in Sirius' body when Remus says he likes his gift is something else, something that makes his stomach flip and his toes curl around Sirius'.

: :

The wedding fills Remus with the usual disgust; self-righteously happy smiles everywhere, faces and clothes and cake all unnaturally pink, and hypocritical remarks being made loudly and often. But this is for James and Lily, and he refrains from scandalising the guests with casual sarcasm.

And looks on with shock and a disturbingly fast-growing arousal when Sirius steps up to make his speech as the best man. Sirius, he knows, has drunk at least a bottle of red, and his lips are swollen from wine and Remus' teeth. Yet there's a smile wide enough to conquer the world, and Remus hears Lily's sister giggle with alarm and fascination as Sirius rises to stand on the table.

"And now, instead of the traditional speech, I would like to read out a poem by Lord Rochester, which I think expresses perfectly the courtship and love of James Potter and Lily Evans. We, who knew them in school and had the privilege of observing said courtship, will have a particular appreciation for this poem."

Remus is shaking his head silently and violently at Sirius who grins, and then winks at the startled Petunia. Dumbledore is nodding happily, whether from delight or the punch, Remus isn't sure. Professor McGonagall is pursing her lips in a way that suggests she at least has heard of Lord Rochester. There are looks of polite interest on other faces, perhaps some curiosity at the idea of Sirius knowing poetry. Sirius coughs, and tries to look serious.

_"She yields, she yields! Pale Envy said amen:  
The first of women to the last of men."_

There are a few laughs, for Sirius' delivery is impassioned in a way usually reserved for adolescent Slytherins. He raises his hands to the heavens with a mocking bow, and continues.

_"Just so those frailer beings, angels, fell;  
There's no midway, it seems, 'twixt heaven and hell.  
Was it your end, in making her to show  
Things must be raised so high to fall so low?"_

Uncertain smiles turn into full guffaws as Sirius points at James and shakes his head. Lily is laughing her head off and James tries to look like outraged innocence. But Sirius looks on, piercing glances at everyone around the table until his gaze falls on Remus.

_"Since her nor angels their own worth secures,  
Look to it, gods! The next turn must be yours."_

A knowing smirk and a theatrical leer.

_"You who in careless scorn laughed at the ways  
Of Humble love, and called'em rude essays,  
Could you submit to let this heavy thing,  
Artless and witless, no way meriting…"_

Sirius lifts his eyebrow and spreads his hands in mock submission. Remus knows that the look of self-deprecation on his face is practiced but it still gets to him, and Sirius' smile, blinding in its sharpness, has a compelling effect on his own mouth. As the applause breaks Remus shifts on his chair, downs some more champagne and excuses himself. Petunia barely notices, and McGonagall is still explaining to Dumbledore why she started blushing at the beginning of the poem, and so Remus has an easy escape.

Sirius finds him in the garden a few minutes later, as Remus had known he would. This new kind of knowledge smacks of presumption, but Remus is almost determined to stop avoiding thinking about such things, although he will never take them for granted. Sirius greets him with a brotherly hug that quickly turns into groping and insidious fingers crawling under his shirt. His mouth tastes of cheap champagne and Lily's lipstick.

"I didn't realise you'd been reading more of Rochester. Learning poetry by heart, Sirius? How very Ravenclaw of you."

Sirius bites on Remus' lower lip and sucks his tongue into his mouth. It is only when Remus comes up for air moments later that he realises Sirius has managed to open his dress shirt and is winding Remus' tie around his fingers.

"Oh I did more than that. Learned more for you, poetry for you. Well, a drinking song."

It isn't a big thing, Sirius has always been fond of outrageous gestures and has an exceptional memory, so this should be easy, it shouldn't mean anything. Yet Remus' heart is shuddering and his voice cracks when he speaks. He fears the rest of him is cracking as well, shattering to pieces he can't even hope to control, all because of a stupid poem and Sirius.

"A drinking song?"

Sirius leans close and licks his tongue along Remus' trembling lips. The words he whispers into Remus' mouth aren't familiar, but Remus knows that he will remember them, remember and curse and bless them for they signal the end of his resolution.

_"But carve thereon a spreading wine,  
Then add two lovely boys;  
Their limbs in amorous folds entwine,  
The type of future joys."_   



End file.
